Retail: How to Use Fashion Trends to Increase Sales (All Business.com’s Chris Bjorklund interviews retail expert Mike Kraus on how to increase sales by using fashion trends.)

Chris Bjorklund: You’re listening to the AllBusiness podcast. I’m Bjorklund. If you’re getting this through iTunes and RSS feed or an online streaming media player, you have the opportunity to hear more valuable advice from top business experts right here on AllBusiness.com. We’ll be right back after this brief message from our sponsor, comcast.

My guest today, Mike Kraus, believes that retail businesses can increase sales and become more profitable by paying attention to the world of fashion. He is the owner of Airtime Consulting. He has worked for more than 15 years in the retail, restaurant and entertainment sectors, helping companies market their products more strategically. He is also a regular blogger for AllBusiness.com. Today he’ll explain how you can improve your business by using color and design cues from the runways of Milan. Mike Kraus, welcome to the AllBusiness podcast.

Mike Kraus: Thanks Chris. It’s great to be here.

Bjorklund: You are a business consultant who apparently has a very good eye for color and design.

Kraus: Where did you get that information?

Bjorklund: Well, it is part of your consulting business and it is part of your job. Then to watch color and design trends, it is your job to notice these things.

Kraus: You know it is not so much my job, there are real experts for that kind of thing. But what I do recommend for anybody who is in the retail business is you do need to be aware of what is going on from a design and color-trend perspective. You know, a lot of this was derived directly from the fashion industry and fashion has such an unbelievable impact on a lot of retail businesses, be it, you know, apparel, home, even kitchenware now is taking a lot of influences from fashion, beauty certainly as well.

Bjorklund: I am looking at a fashion magazine right now. I am kind of leafing through Bazaar and I am looking at animal prints. I am looking at gray, I am looking at metallic being fashion trends that are coming soon. How do you, let’s say, that these prints are relevant to some of this retail operations? They should be thinking about them, looking at them? Do some of your clients find that they need some convincing that these trends are relevant to their business?

Kraus: I think it is more eye-opening to the fact that they should be looking at those kinds of things. So you know, for a lot of retailers, unless you work for a big, big company, you’re probably not even aware of how the fashion industry influences a lot of retail. So it is more about, you know, them having 20-to-100 vision and putting a pair of glasses on them to help them see how fashion does actually impact the retail business. So when you talk about, you know, Bazaar magazine, Harper’s magazine or whichever magazine you’re looking at, you start looking at more and more things and you get clarity for where the trends actually are.

Bjorklund: Now is there any hard evidence that you can point to that shows any kind of connection between the proper use of color and design with an increase in sales?

Kraus: It is not so much hard evidence as it is you’re kind of remiss that if you don’t participate. I will give you an example. All major retailers are subscribing to the same types of reports. There are trend reports out there to tell them what the hot colors are going to be, what the hot patterns are going to be, what is always up and coming. So they are going to take their influence from those trend reports. They’re also going to look at the fashion industry, what is going on the runways in Paris, in New York and in Milan, kind of blend all those things together and then start looking to see what each other is doing as well, and that is how they develop where they’re going to take their business.

So apparel certainly is at the forefront of it but everybody else is going to take their cues from it. So you know it might be that Abercrombie & Fitch is telling you to wear chartreuse and Williams-Sonoma is telling you to buy chartreuse pots and pans this year and Byron is telling you to buy chartreuse pillow. So you’re going to start seeing chartreuse everywhere. If you, as a retailer, are promoting pink, you’re probably not going to be on trend at all and people are going to pass you by when they see pink in your window because all the other retailers out there are teaching them that they should buy a chartreuse. So as long as you take advantage of the trends that these other retailers are creating and that the fashion industry is creating, then yes, you’re going to be onboard and you should see some results from a positive sales impact. Is there a hard data? Absolutely not, but there is a lot of empirical evidence that points to the fact that you’re on trend, people are going to shop more at your location.

Bjorklund: Well let’s hear what one of the top trend spotters in the world of fashion has to say about some of the coming fads, as seen on YouTube. She is a style director at eBay. She was at New York fashion week and let’s give a listen to Constance White. She is the fashion watcher for eBay.

Constance White: Some of the key trends are going to be, “I love those little lace-up booties,”, de-emphasis on jewelry, a lot of head emphasis, whether it’s huge-brimmed hats at Marc Jacobs, or great little handkerchiefs at Michael Kors and that could also be a reason why we haven’t seen a lot of same necklaces and earrings.

Bjorklund: So, Mike, based on those comments, I mean, can we talk about some actual, practical applications. I mean hats, am I going to put hats in my window?

Kraus: Well if you’re in the apparel business then this type of information is really, really relevant to what you are doing and yes you should actually find these kinds of clips on YouTube and pay attention to what they are saying. So if hats are going to be big, she said that accessories were going to be really influential coming forward, you know, less emphasis on jewelry and more on scarves and other types of accessories--those are the types of things that you should be featuring if you are in apparels, absolutely. But there are so many retailers that aren’t in the apparel business where hats aren’t going to make sense if you’re selling cookware. Just because you’re selling cookware doesn’t mean that you should put hats in your front window. So there are other influences outside of fashion that you should be paying attention to in terms of trying to determine what the trends are.

Bjorklund: So if you have a hardware store that features gift items, then you know you probably have to take into account the context that you’re working in, the type of customer. I mean, you’re not going to be featuring hankies.

Kraus: Right. Here’s what I recommend to everyone. We all get a million catalogs in our mailbox, you know there are days where you know the catalogs are coming because your mailbox is full of them and what you need to do as a retailer is to just go shopping. Go shopping in catalogs or walk down to the mall and pay attention to what’s going on in the store. So for instance, if I pick up a Williams-Sonoma catalog, I have one in front of me as a matter of fact, and I look through a number of them every single week to see what’s going on. Chartreuse and blue are the two hottest colors anywhere this summer, you will see them in absolutely everything. So as you page through a Williams-Sonoma catalog you will see that they are using is the background for print copy on top of it. You will see they are using photography that features those two colors. There is even a kid who has on a chartreuse shirt with a blue apron on over it. So a lot of it is subtle but the color scheme is chartreuse and blue and as you look through catalogs you know Bloomingdales is featuring blue cookware, they are featuring blue linens. So when they show a stock of towels, it’s all in a certain shade of blue. So those are the trends that are going to be more relevant to the retailers at large. It’s not necessarily hats and accessories but it’s a color scheme or a style scheme or a design scheme that everybody can take the real information away from an employed in their business.

Bjorklund: So I don’t have to significantly change my product next to have some fun with this?

Kraus: No not at all and that’s the great thing. You know retailing is supposed to be fun and when you go study it should be fun, you go shopping, you know, what’s better fun from that? So it’s just keeping your eyes open and as long as you do that, you start to notice the trend. So it’s not so much about buying new products, you could take a collection of products that you already have. Let’s say you have a group of soaps and candles in chartreuse and blue, you can pull those together on a table and create a feature in your store and maybe just put a really nice big piece of fabric behind it hanging from the ceiling in one of those two colors and suddenly you’re on trend that you are saying, “Look I understand that chartreuse and blue are hot and by the way I have all these products in chartreuse and blue.” And as people walk by your store they are going to look in and see that and probably be more drawn in than as those who are selling pink or something else.

Bjorklund: So how often should you consider making changes? Is there any rule of thumb there for retailers?

Kraus: You know retail is like everything else. It’s moving faster and faster. There is a great company called H&M that a lot people have heard of even though they don’t have that many locations. And these guys have changed the apparel world in terms of looking at what’s going on, on the runways of Paris and New York. And they were able to take that, the trends, and turn them into real clothing in 16 weeks’ time and they have them in their stores. So what it costs to everybody else to play the same game in terms of trying to get products from the fashion runways into their stores a lot faster. But when it’s done it has meant that change happens a lot more fast as well. So every season, you should probably change. So four times a year you should look at the trends and understand what the trends are and change. I was talking to a friend of mine who is a designer for JC Penney and he was talking about how we were in the chartreuse and blue and new retailers are already showing yellows and greens that are going to be hot next summer. So they are already toe-stepping into it a little bit even though it’s not going to be in their stores for another nine months or so.

Bjorklund: Is there anything wrong with sticking with the basics or sticking with your classic colors? Let’s say your products or your brands are associated with a certain color scheme, I guess I am looking into colors more than the design elements?

Kraus: No. I mean, there are so many great retailers out there that have 90 percent of their store never changed. I talked about Williams-Sonoma, for instance. It’s cookware and cookware doesn’t really change. But what does change is you’ll see more and more colors come into play. So the areas where they can impact their business, linens, place mats, those kinds of things, even some cookware manufacturers are producing more products in this trend color schemes. So they will bring those in and they will feature those in specific areas of the store even though 90 percent or 95 percent of their store remains the same stable of products that they have always had, they are showing you that they are on trend by buying into these products that are have a specific color associated with them. We talked a little bit earlier about, “Do you have to change your entire product mix?” Absolutely not. “Can you pull together the products that are in the color that are on trend?” Yes, absolutely.

Bjorklund: I love the point you made about it, some of this should be fun.

Kraus: Yeah.

Bjorklund: Let’s face it, many small retailers are dealing with, I don’t know, customer complaints, maintenance, as in drop-in toilets, trying to stay up-to-date on issues within their industry, employee relations and on and on. So I think you know focusing on the fun part a little bit and that brings me to another question, which is, “What are some of the most cost-effective and simplest changes that you can make to appear to be with it?

Kraus: Yeah and that’s a great question, because I am sure there are some people who are listening, they are thinking, “Oh, this is so overwhelming, I don’t know how to jump into this.” One of the great takeaways of this whole thing is how do you apply this to the real world and make it simple. So there are very simple things you can do, aside from creating a feature in your store where you just pull together products that are on trend in terms of colors that we already talked about. You can use it in your marketing materials. So you know I talked a little about Williams-Sonoma just using the two hot colors in the background in their catalog. You can do that in your marketing materials. If you have an e-mail that you’re going to send out, you can put it on a background of chartreuse or a blue color. You can do a direct mail piece the same way. Just about any marketing material can be influenced by these trend colors. There are also things you can do from visual merchandising perspective in your store. So the possibilities are almost endless, just think about all aspects for your business. You could put a blue button on your employees you know and then there are a lot of simple little things that you can do that don’t take a lot of time or cost a lot of money.

Bjorklund: Yeah, I would think that making a change, let’s say in an e-mail newsletter...

Kraus: Right.

Bjorklund: How tough is that?

Kraus: That’s very easy.

Bjorklund: What do you do? Push a button? Push a button? I do not know.

Kraus: It’s not that difficult and I gave a great example about the photography as well. You just go online and try to find some stock photos that are very inexpensive and that are in the color scheme that you are looking for and use those to promote your store or the products you are selling or whatever the case maybe.

Bjorklund: What are your last thoughts on, let’s say, the biggest point of resistance for company is when you know you talk to them about some of these changes?

Kraus: You know I think it is more a matter of, like I said earlier, opening their eyes. They don’t know that they’re supposed to be looking for these things and so once you’ve kind of open their eyes to the fact that they should be paying attention to trends and fashion and color and style and design and everything else, they’ll wipe out everything that goes on in their head and they’ll say, “Ah, OK, I kind of got it now.” And the example of looking through five catalogs, I guarantee you if they look through five catalogs, you will see the trends as clear as they and that’s the best way to kind of just jump into these. And ultimately it does come back to having fun with it. This is retail, it’s a fun industry, it’s high energy and, this is the best part of retail, it’s the visual merchandising and design element of the business that you should be having the most fun with.

Bjorklund: Well after hearing what you have to say about this and fashion, how it influences retail, I know that many of us will be feeling very different the next time we go to the mall.

Right, but there is a flipside of that, because suddenly you start studying every time you go to the mall so you’ve got to make sure you balance the fun of shopping with the fun of studying.

Bjorklund: OK, so how do we find your blog?

Kraus: I blog for AllBusiness.com. Just go to AllBusiness.com and click on “business bloggers” and you will find me in the retail section. I write a blog called “Real-World Retailing” and the whole intent of it is to give startup business and also entrepreneurial retailers real-world advice that they can use and implement in their business.

Bjorklund: Mike Kraus, thanks so much for being with us today.

Kraus: Thanks Chris, it was my pleasure.

Bjorklund: The guest featured in today was Mike Kraus, owner of Airtime Consulting. You can learn more how the fashion industry drives retail in Mike’s blog in AllBusiness.com.

And if you have feedback on this show or would like to recommend guests, send your e-mail to podcast@AllBusiness.com. I am Bjorklund and thanks for listening.